To wonder if anyone has applied for the bake off?

[superstarheartbreaker]

Or would consider doing so since Iian/ Diana ice cream debacle?

I love baking, I'm damn good at it but I'd hate the media attention. I like the competitive aspect of it and the chance to show off skills.

I'm blaming the Bake Off for me putting on weight. Can't stop eating bread... Dammit!

give it away

I'd love to know what the elimination rounds are like.

Bet lots apply. I wonder what they are asked to bake? Is it bitchy? Does Mary Paul, Mel or sue show up?

Love the bake off but would never enter?

Love to bake and would enjoy the challenge of improving my skills in preparation.

Would have considered entering a couple of years ago, but wouldn't touch it with a barge pole since the last couple of years and media circus.

I wouldn't enter because I'm one of those for who it tastes fine but the decoration looks like a 5yo has done it.
I'd hate the media attention too, which is what would really put me off.

I'd probably slightly prefer to do the sewing bee. Actually I really would prefer to do the sewing bee massively. But again, although the garments look fine, it's the finishing I've no idea how to do, I've never had a sewing lesson in my life, so I'm all self taught.

What I would find interesting and fun to do is a improving course for sewing, or baking. Where they take total amateurs who can do the basics and help them improve. So they show how to (baking) use an icing bag, do chocolate/sugar decoration etc., or (sewing) how to roll a hem, set a zip really well etc.
I think it would be helpful to see people like the "normal" home baker/sewer doing things and tips to show them how to improve.
In that was I think masterchef has one over the bake off in that they give them chances to improve what they can do, rather than just Paul standing there saying "Oh you're doing it that way are you. Wouldn't do it like that, but I'm not saying why" whith his face on.

Oh De Wee, I would love to watch an improvement show.

Like yourself everything I know is self taught.

My best friend was on the sewing bee, he loved it but he is very outgoing and adored the attention!

I think you would need a very very thick skin to enter the Bake Off. People on line often seem to forget these are real people with feelings and say absolutely awful things about them. Poor Ruby got a terrible time last year and this year Diana seems to have been set up as a nice target for people to throw stones at.
I just don't understand people who come on and start making really hurtful personal criticisms against the contestants, commenting on their weight, 'whiny' voices etc and saying how they 'just don't like' someone or other.
Criticise their baking if you like, but making hurtful remarks about the contestants themselves is pretty despicable.

I applied and got to the second round of the application.

oohnewshoes I do think that I may do a sewing evening class at some point. Problem is when I'm sewing it's almost always on a deadline so I don't have chance to spend thinking about how I could do it better.

The issue for me is that the people entering now may be amateurs in real terms but actually their ability is professional. So they look as though the programme has given them the skills to go further, but actually they already had the skill.

Luis lives in a neighbouring town to us and the local paper ran a peice on him. He said he had intended to enter the year before but when he downloaded the application form he realised that there were larges gaps in what he knew and could do so he postponed for a year to hone his skills and then tried again.

Must be some application form!

My SIL friend got through to the final bit (was going to be on TV) then they found out she'd baked cakes for various friends weddings. Even though she hadn't been paid they counted it as 'commercial baking' or something and they replaced her.

I'm nowhere near good enough at baking for a show like that.

But even if I was a fantastic baker, seeing all the abuse directed towards Diana this week would put me right off.

CaulkheadUpNorth - what's the application process like?

And your aibu is...?

Huge application form including designing show stopper type bakes. Then phone interview. Then after that you have to go somewhere and bake practice stuff but I didn't get that far.
Ime you need a "thing" - like your career/age/hobbies etc.

or be 17 and doing your A Levels whilst baking like a boss!

I've never applied, but I know - not very well - someone who was in it recently, and what she said was very much what Caulk said. Surely no one, however naive, actually thinks that the twelve who end up on TV are the twelve best bakers who applied. The producers are casting, as they would for a sitcom, or a documentary where a variety of different experiences and faces are wanted. They consider your age, sex, ethnic background, and whether there's something unusual you can bring to the programme.

Besides being able to bake, obviously, I'm sure part of, say, Chetna's appeal was her interest in using Indian ingredients and recipes, just as Luis's was his design background and his Spanish-influenced dishes and flavours. Martha represents Youth, Diana Age, Norman Scots Presbyterian Plain Speaking, Richard Bluff Builder with an unexpectedly delicate touch, Jordan is Zany Guy etc etc.

Anyone interested in applying should read Danny the medic from last year's blog, Baking as Therapy. Without letting cats out of bags or being unpleasant about the programme, she talks about what it was like combining a demanding job with appearing, how the editing altered the real people she felt she knew, and why she wouldn't do it again.

I would never go on tv. Everything is edited to the way the tv companies want it to be like and not the actual reality of what its like.

Cant believe that diana left before being eliminated.